Hobby Lobby and the trans community

The day of the ruling was one of those days where it felt to millions like they had been punched in the gut. The range of emotions went from shock to disbelief to anger and then hopelessness.

The US Supreme Court ruled that a “closely held” corporation could use its religious beliefs against the religious and other beliefs of its employees and deny them coverage for birth control.

This translates into companies like Hobby Lobby being allowed to tell their female employees (because condoms are over the counter) that they cannot have prescription coverage in their health plans for contraceptives if their company has some religious belief that providing the coverage would offend.

There are so many levels on which to consider how wrong and dangerous this ruling is and its long reaching impact is only beginning, but as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote in her scathing dissenting opinion, “The court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield.”

What does this mean to the trans community?

It means that after all the fighting that has been done to get trans health included in insurance policies, none of it will matter now.

Here is how it will work:

A trans person has insurance through his/her employer and decides to transition. The ACA (Affordable Care Act) has a provision to protect people from discrimination which would require the insurer to cover the hormones and regular doctor visits and blood work. These are routine visits that must occur for a trans person twice a year to maintain his/her health.

The trans person’s company, before today, would not have been able to claim a religious exception to providing coverage for that medical care and if they had refused, the employee would have had legal rights under the ACA to protect his/her rights to the insurance coverage.

BUT…..

As of this ruling, all the company must do is claim it violates their religion to provide medicine for transgender people and be a small enough company (like tiny little Hobby Lobby) and that person will lose their healthcare and can do nothing about it.

How does this become even more concerning??

Let us suppose that the transgender person has a family. The family will lose their coverage as well.

AND…. even more concerning is the fact that this provides an avenue for religious excuses for firing someone from their job, dishonoring their marriage, and denying them other necessary services.

An employer could, under a broad interpretation of this ruling, claim that it offends their religion to have a gay or lesbian person working for them and fire them while claiming this religious exemption.

It certainly opens the door!

The United States was created on a foundation of individual rights, not a collective of corporations or governments.

The Bill of Rights applies to each individual American, not a corporate board.

Our foundation was built and is very well supported on the premise that those who came to the new world were escaping religious persecution from a government sponsored religion.

They wanted to be free FROM government sponsored religion!

Thomas Jefferson said,

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”

And James Madison stated,

“Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by [Religious] Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in history.”

Whatever your belief about the religious/ non-religious founding of this country, it is clear that at the time the constitution was written, the Founding Fathers had a clear understanding of the danger.

Separation of church and state is fundamental to the success of our democracy.

How to fix this?

First, lobby (no pun intended) your local and state congressional members and ask them to add language to the RFRA (Religious Freedom and Restoration Act) that specifically states that it DOES NOT apply to for-profit companies of any kind.

Second, don’t do business with people who use their religion to discriminate against others, particularly those who make them money, their employees.

And finally, fight for the protection of individual rights. The power of our constitutional democracy has rested in the exercise of “we the people” and if we do not stand and demand that the corporations and governments not forget that most important foundational tenant, then we will be the only ones to blame.

Freedom is about my right and your right to be free from our government, the church, corporations, and anything else we, as individuals choose. A corporation is not a person and it cannot believe anything. Therefore it has no rights!

When the subject matter of something as impactful as a Supreme Court ruling seems to have no application to you or your loved ones, think again.

Chase

Chase Jones

4 Responses

The decision, while flawed on a number of levels, will not lead to the apocalypse you predict for a number of reasons. first, it only examined a particular statute, not the Constitutional rights to religious freedom. Secondly, it was specific that its holding was (allegedly) premised on the fact Congress can do the same thing (assure contraceptive availability for all at no/minimal cost) in other ways. Which it can, by the way.

I agree corporations have no religious beliefs. Unfortunately for the now the Supremes think that some can. But the problem is much smaller than you fear,

Chase, you state that the ruling will “deny them coverage for birth control”. Did you actually read the ruling? This is not true. In order for this blog to be taken seriously I would recommend you fact check yourself a bit. Hobby Lobby in fact covers 16 forms of birth control to include: 1.Male condoms
2.Female condoms
3.Diaphragms with spermicide
4.Sponges with spermicide
5.Cervical caps with spermicide
6.Spermicide alone
7.Birth-control pills with estrogen and progestin (“Combined Pill)
8.Birth-control pills with progestin alone (“The Mini Pill)
9.Birth control pills (extended/continuous use)
10.Contraceptive patches
11.Contraceptive rings
12.Progestin injections
13.Implantable rods
14.Vasectomies
15.Female sterilization surgeries
16.Female sterilization implants
Certainly a bit more than your claim of denial. Additionally, it was the Clinton supported law that the supreme court cited for putting them in the position to back Hobby Lobby in the first place. The Obama care mandate violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which says the government cannot place burdens on the exercise of freedom of religion. This just goes to show another case of government overreach and making more problems instead of fixing them. I am not a democrat or a republican. I am simply a fed up citizen who values freedom for all and less government involvement in addition to making sure people get the facts correct.

My first reaction is to be a little offended by the language you used to explicitly state that I was completely incorrect. And while I can appreciate your laundry list of the above forms/ methods of birth control, the reality is that the court is allowing a corporation to exercise an individuals rights as if somehow the corporation is a person. They are allowed to broadly deny birth control, even the methods you listed above, as a result of this ruling. And yes, I read the entire ruling page for page and, YES I am fully aware of what it says and I hold out the same reservations that Justice Ginsburg holds, but from an even more dire position as I have an understanding about a community that I am certain she has not considered.

That being said… you are correct that RFRA was a Clinton era law, as was don’t ask don’t tell. Neither have I ever supported nor consider to be good law. It is irrelevant, however, what president was reigning at the time when the law was passed. What matters most is that the court has reached an interpretation of RFRA that goes beyond what I, and many other lawyers and legal scholars believe the law was intended to protect.

Personally, I do not and have never believed that RFRA was ever necessary. It is a redundant law that is already covered in the First Amendment to the Constitution. But even if congress, which they have the enumerated power to create, felt the act was necessary, I SERIOUSLY DOUBT they ever contemplated that a corporation would be exercising a personal right. Thus while you may wish to make this a political party divided matter, I would argue that the law is not a liberal or conservative law more than it is a redundant law that was passed by congress out of fear. Religion is afraid it is becoming less and less relevant in this country (and maybe it is) and that fear of irrelevancy is causing irrational reactions.

This ruling is one such reaction. The court is allowing a corporation to be a human being and that cannot stand. My rights as a human being should always trump, and the constitution was created for this exact purpose, the idea that a king or crown, company, dictator, what have you has the same rights as a citizen, person, human being. “We the people…” does not mean we the corporation… it means me and you and my mother and your father and each and every individual American. A corporation cannot ever be a single protected human being with the same rights that we as citizens and people have.

We need some government, otherwise there would be anarchy. There must be a balance between the free market and the social needs of our society. We cannot be black and white and say that we are socialist or capitalist when in reality, the best society is really both, balanced properly to allow our country to grow and be successful.

I must respectfully disagree, however, time will tell and perhaps things will be different than I predict. I am no soothsayer. But there is a real fear and that fear has now come in the form of a number of religious organisations attempting to exempt from ENDA which has now prompted many of our support organizations to back out of supporting the law. When the door for religious exemption is opened, discrimination becomes a state sanctioned activity whether people want to acknowledge that fact or not. It is a very dangerous exemption that is allowing religion to deny basic rights to citizens…. sounds reminiscent of the Church of England and the Pilgrims….and the king…. hmmmm…

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